Complete Casting Announced for London Porgy and Bess

Complete casting has been announced for Trevor Nunn's abridged London staging of the Gershwin classic Porgy and Bess.

In addition to the previously announced Clarke Peters (The Iceman Cometh, Chicago) as Porgy, Nicola Hughes (Fosse, Damn Yankees in London) as Bess, Cornell John (Les Miserables, The Full Monty in London) as Crown, Dawn Hope (Simply Heavenly, Ain't Misbehavin') as Serena, and OT Fagbenle (Six Degrees of Separation) as Sportin' Life, the show will feature Melanie Marshall as Maria, with Lorraine Velez, Edward Baruwa, Des Coleman, Sam Douglas, Harry Ditson, Maurey Richards, Wendy Mae Brown, Julian Cannonier, Ian Carlyle, Cavin Cornwall, Ruby King, Hannah Levane, Yolanda Grant-Thompson, Anton Stephans, Ewart James Walters, Josie Benson, Phillip Browne, Glenn Conroy, Chris Copeland, Lewis Davies, Nolan Frederick, Paul Isles, Holly James, Leroy Ricardo Jones, Stephen Lester, A.J. Lewis, George Daniel Long, Sandra Marvin, Nathaniel Morrison, Terel Nugent, Ngo Omene-Ngofa, Lisa Davina Phillip, and Emi Wokoma.

Tony Award-winner Nunn (The Woman in White, Les Miserables)--who helmed an acclaimed production of Porgy and Bess at the Glyndebourne Festival Opera in 1986--has adapted the opera into the musical The Gershwins' Porgy and Bess.  ."..About three years ago, he said, he approached the Gershwin estate with the idea of turning the opera into a musical by fashioning a book out of the 1925 novel, the subsequent play and the opera's libretto by DuBose Heyward (whose wife, Dorothy, co-wrote the play) and some other historical materials. The estate approved of his version, and he has invited members of the Gershwin family along for the process, including a workshop last year," stated an earlier New York Times article.